IWL gets strong growth in cashflow

Financial services technology group,IWL, has recorded strong growth in operating cash flow for the quarter ending December 31, 2001.

The growth in operating cash flow of $1,267,000, reflects an increase of 97 per cent over the previous quarter and 116 per cent over the corresponding quarter last year.

It is understood that IWL achieved its growth after an increase in the number of licensed software users, the first payment fromZurich Australiaunder the development agreement between the two groups for financial services software, and the payment of annual licence fees by a significant corporate client.

The group’s operating costs, although increasing in the quarter following the inclusion of the Accompli Technologies Limited operations to IWL, remain tightly controlled

According to IWL’s December 2001 quarter accounts, Accompli had one-off costs such as redundancy payments related to the restructuring of the Accompli business and the payment of tax relating to the capital gain on the divestment of Investors Mutual Limited.

IWL reported a net cash outflow of $986,000 for the quarter leaving cash reserves of $18,451,000 at December 31, 2001 after finalising its investing and financing activities. The net cash outflow comes about primarily as a result of IWL’s on-market and minimum holding share buy-back in which the company had bought back and cancelled shares at a cost of $2,406,000.

Investing activity results include proceeds from the sale of non-core investments ($293,000), cash acquired net of related transaction costs relating to the Accompli business ($242,000) and payments made in the further development of VisiWeb’s middleware financial advisory software ($303,000).